MOSCOW, June 24. /TASS/. Russia’s Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev has called for considering a possibility of limiting the import of flowers to Russia as part of extending the country’s counter-sanctions.

"I think these issues may be considered also in regard to flowers," Tkachev said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 TV channel on Wednesday.

Russia should also ban the import of pastry items as the country "has powerful confectionery industry," the minister said.

Speaking on canned fish, he said: "Over the past years, our fish industry, processing and harvest has been developing rather well."

Russia's agricultural watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor has initiated the ban on imports of pastry items as part of Russia’s retaliatory measures, Tkachev reminded.

Russia introduced an embargo on food imports in August 2014 in retaliation to the sanctions imposed by the United States, Australia, Canada, the European Union and Norway against Moscow over its stance on developments in neighboring Ukraine.

Russia’s food embargo involves a one-year ban on meat, fish, dairy, fruit and vegetable imports from the countries that slapped sanctions against Moscow. Russia’s counter-measures have been called "food embargo" as the list of banned goods mostly consists of foodstuffs.